


The Great Unifier

by pocky_slash



Category: Dexter (TV)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-12-19
Updated: 2006-12-19
Packaged: 2018-01-25 07:39:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,744
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1639373
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pocky_slash/pseuds/pocky_slash
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dexter and the ITK play the game. (Major spoilers through the end of S1.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Great Unifier

**Author's Note:**

> Written for templemarker

_"Estrangement in a family is a shame, but death is the great unifier."_

\--"Father Knows Best"

***

**i.**

It's hard for Dexter to mistake the rush of euphoria that comes from looking over his new friend's crime scenes. It would be embarrassing, if he could manage to be embarrassed about something. Of course, the basis of embarrassment is fear of what one looks like in the eyes of others, and Dexter knows that if anyone figures out why these crime scenes are so thrilling, he'll have more to worry about than being labeled a pervert.

But the lack of blood? The neat, orderly pieces? The precision with which they're laid out? It sends a chill down his spine. Beautiful.

His desperation to know more about his friend is chilling. The Ice Truck Killer. Such a sensationalized name. Typical front page tabloid fare. Devoid of respect for the skill that these murders took.

He prefers to think of the perpetrator of these crimes as an anonymous comrade. An anonymous comrade planning a spectacular reveal, courting him with bloodless corpses and provocative games. Doing things to his mind, distracting him from his facade...

Ruining things with Rita is really the least of the cracks in his demeanor, because he's starting to lose sight of the Code of Harry. These aren't killings for justice. This is ruthless. This is murder. It's terrible, and Dexter should stop finding the poetry in it.

He's glad, not for the first time, that he doesn't truly dream. It's bad enough that doll pieces are haunting his every waking thought. He doesn't want to know the sort of games going on in his subconscious.

***

**ii.**

Brian knows that Dexter is his brother. He knows that the drive to find Dexter and bring him back into the fold is a deep, familial affection. But looking over the work of Dexter-the-Killer...

He doesn't want to say it's erotic, because there are some things that are taboo, even to a killer. The work itself is precise. It's skilled. And there's so, so very much of it. Brian looks over the slides, dives to see the bodies, spends a long time staring at his baby brother's tools. He wraps himself up in this hidden aspect of Dexter's life, this _thing_ that Dexter thinks no one else should ever be allowed to see.

Brian can see it. Not only does he know about it, but he watches, breathlessly, the very process. Everyday Dexter is a joke next to Killer Dexter. He's a goofy-but-loving caricature. He feels nothing, and once Brian sees the overwhelming passion that Killer Dexter puts into his work, this becomes even more obvious.

He wants to set that Dexter free, the sensual, passionately systematic version of his little brother lost. He shivers as he thinks about it, tries his best to push past the hum of affection present just under his skin. Beautiful, passionate, yes, but still his brother, his baby brother that he promised to look after.

 _Real_ family is important, more important than whatever _this_ is, this feeling. He can never, ever forget that.

***

**iii.**

'Heartbreak' is the only word to describe Neil Perry. Dexter sifts through photos, history, crime scene debris. He looks for anything that would give this away as some sort of elaborate act. Neil Perry can't be the friend he's come to trust, the genius behind a series of crime scenes that were unmatched by anything in his memory.

Neil Perry can't be who he claims to be.

But outside of his own bubble of doubt, everything seems to be in Perry's favor. The corpse in the backyard, the newspaper clippings, the car, the details he knows...

Dexter's the only one not convinced, and he's starting to fear that it's because he can't stand the heartache rather than out of any actual hints or hunches. He needs to focus on Jeremy Downs, for now. Maybe Jeremy will be the one to live up to his expectations.

***

**iv.**

Debra is nothing like Dexter, really.

He had hoped that she would be at least slightly similar, but he's honestly disappointed. She's not as smart as her foster brother. She's not as funny or as perceptive. She's not intuitive, she's too emotional, and her neediness is off putting.

Brian knew he'd need her for this part of the plan, but he had hoped that winning her over would be more complicated than a few glasses of champagne and meaningless romantic dribble in the bedroom. A part of him wanted the challenge of hiding who he was from the kind of perceptive police prodigy he imagined Harry Morgan had been.

It's disappointing, is what it is.

Not hard, though. Brian can fake many things, and romance is near the top of the list. The most difficult part will be hiding his fascination with her brother, and if Brian knows Deb (and, honestly, it doesn't take more than a few moments of contemplation to know Deb), she'll just blame that on poor Dexter anyway.

It's easy, yes. But disappointing.

***

**v.**

He can't

He can't

He can't concentrate. Dexter can't concentrate. He can't think. He can't

His mind is filled with returning memories, with images he can't push away. He thought killing the shrink would destroy the remnants of that lone image, the boy in blood that was stowed away in his brain. He thought he would be fine, he _would_ have been fine but then, oh god, the blood...

He hates blood and he's fascinated by blood, but he never knew why, never really knew why until he walked into a hotel room out of his worst nightmare.

Now he can't sleep. He can't escape the images, he can't focus on his life... he can play pretend, hide behind his mask, because god knows he's had enough experience with _that_ to do it in his sleep. But everything else is just beyond his reach, quickly taken over by the boy in the blood, by little Dexter, little Dexter reaching out for a mother who's being shorn to pieces all around him. Little Dexter who _can_ feel things, apparently, as nothing in his life, not even Harry's death, has ever effected him quite like this.

He doesn't know why his friend is doing this. Why this was chosen. Why this stranger feels the need to bring up these long repressed memories. He doesn't want to see them anymore. He didn't want to see them to begin with, and he's starting to wonder if his playful friend really has his best interests at heart.

***

**vi.**

A night to remember. It's going to be brilliant. It's going to be home.

It's going to be sooner than he imagined, if Debra keeps fucking things up.

He wanted to get to know Dexter, yes. He wanted to spend time with him. He still does, and for that, at least, he's grateful for Deb's temper tantrums. At the same time, all of this will be cut woefully short if he loses Debra now. He can't risk that. He's waited too long.

Spending time with Dexter, though, even as Everyday Dexter treats him as nothing more than his silly sister's beau, is incredible. After all of those years... he remembers, distantly, his early days in the institution, before he learned to play the game.

"Dexter," he would say over and over again, "where is Dexter? I need to see Dexter!"

They told him if he was good, maybe he could see Dexter someday soon.

He quickly learned that was nothing more than a convenient lie.

Seeing Dexter for the first time, really seeing him, talking to him face to face... it was hard to let go of the baby who was pulled from his arms all those years ago. He did it, though. It wasn't the brotherly reunion he needed, it was nothing more than a meeting of masks, Rudy Cooper greeting Everyday Dexter Morgan.

Even this, drinking beers and eating steaks late into the night, even this is nothing more than Dexter humoring him. Which he'll put up with, if it means spending time with the brother who's been lost to him for so many years. He's just waiting, anyway. He knows that some day soon, Brian and Killer Dexter Moser will be reunited.

Sooner than he anticipated, if Debra doesn't keep her desperate heart in check.

***

**vii.**

It's not a game any more.

If he thinks about it, Dexter knows it hasn't been a game for a long time. It's been about him. It's been a trip down memory lane, a tribute to a dead mother he never even knew. He doesn't know why Rudy is doing this or why Deb is the centerpiece. It's been about his family all along, about Harry and his mother and a blood filled shipping container. Familial in nature, yes, but why _Deb_? Because she's the only family he has left? Is that what it's about? His real mother killed before his eyes, his foster mother dead, his foster father, his real father murdered by Rudy, his sister kidnapped... was it a sick joke, abandon poor Dex, leave him all alone in the world, as if he wasn't all alone the moment that chainsaw started going?

He doesn't understand. The harder he thinks the less he gets it. Why the body parts? Why the fixation on his mother's murder? Why does Rudy want him to remember? What is he forgetting that Rudy thinks is so fucking important?

He can't think about it, but it's all he can think about. It's still better, he figures, than thinking about whatever the fuck is happening to his sister.

***

**viii.**

_"Dexter! Where is Dexter? I need to see Dexter!"_

He remembers it clearly, shouting it at the nurses, aides, doctors, shrinks. He remembers scrambling to find his baby brother upon his release, shocked that Dexter Moser had disappeared from record all together. He remembers the joy he felt upon seeing Dexter for the first time. He remembers just a few hours ago, holding his brother and then leading him outside so they could start their life together.

_"I need to see Dexter!"_

He did. He has. He's seen all of Dexter, now, as the blood runs down his throat, drops into the bin below him.

He hears Dexter crying. As he fades away, the cries mix with the sobs of baby Dexter on that day, all those years ago, when the two of them were first born.

 


End file.
